Sport und Spiel

I hope everyone got to watch the Turkey/Czech Republic game today. Not only was it an important game in which the winner advanced to the round of 16, but it was one of the most amazing soccer games I've ever seen. And that's from someone who has seen very little soccer over his life time.

Admittedly, I didn't start watching until early in the second half, just before the Czech Republic took an insurmountable 2-nil lead. Game over. Turkey go home.

But then I got to see a string of things I've never seen in all my handfuls of games I've watched.

After cutting the lead in half, Nihat Kahveci took over. If soccer clocks behaved like hockey clocks -- that is if they were to stop after a goal and during the celebration and then start up again at the faceoff/kickoff -- he would have scored the tieing and winning goals in about 15 seconds.

Then, in extra time, the Turkish goaltender was red-carded. With all three substitutions used, a player on the field had to be the goalie. And that player was, of course, Nihat Kahveci. He didn't have to make a stop. But it's still cool.

And finally, one of Turkey's bench players was yellow-carded. I've never seen that either.

So let's all get behind Turkey, but most of all let's get behind Texas and let's get triple behind the Burnett Shale.

Go Stars!